Free Sentinels of Fire by P. T. Deutermann

your tactical circuit down in Radio Central; everyone else muster on the messdecks. CIC Watch Officer, go to secondary conn. Come up on the 1 JV circuit until the OOD relieves you.”
    The watch standers, officers and enlisted, all tried not to crowd up at the front door, but I could feel their fear as they hurried past me and headed down below. I really, really, had wanted to lead that charge but knew I couldn’t do that. Once the space had been evacuated, I went back out the bridge to report to the captain. He had sent the entire bridge watch team except for one terrified-looking phone-talker back to the secondary conning station, remaining alone on the bridge. He’d ordered Main Battery Plot to evacuate the AA gun stations nestled on either side of the forward stack, then told Damage Control Central to send an investigative team to the signal bridge. Then he got on the 1 MC.
    â€œAttention all hands,” he said. “This is the captain speaking. We have an unexploded bomb wedged into the superstructure on the signal bridge. We are going to have to figure out how to defuse it and get it over the side. I want all hands to keep away from the base of the forward stack until we figure out how to do that. In the meantime, all hands on topside stations keep your eyes peeled. We never saw that last bogey until he was right on us. Heads-up ball for the forties on that one. Well done. That is all.”
    Marty Randolph, the gun boss, arrived down in the pilothouse from his station up above in the forward five-inch gun director.
    â€œDid you see it?” I asked him.
    Marty licked his lips. “Most certainly did,” he said, his voice strained. “Stared at that damned thing for ten seconds, waiting for my first personal meeting with Jesus. It’s big, XO. Really big. Wedged sideways. I didn’t linger to see if it’s ticking or whatever they do.”
    The captain grinned. “Linger,” he said. “Yeah, sure. Okay. What do we know about how aircraft bombs are fuzed?”
    Marty said he’d had a class on bomb fuzing back in gunnery school. “Usually there’s a wire, hooked to the plane’s fuselage or wing, with the other end hooked to the arming switch on the bomb. They drop it, that wire pulls the arming switch. Then they have little propellers on the nose and on the tail. The propellers are driven by the slipstream as the bomb falls. It has to turn a certain number of revolutions before the arming circuit is completed, which keeps the bomber safe from a preemie.”
    â€œSo when he saw he was gonna miss with the plane, he dropped the bomb, but it didn’t have time to arm,” the captain said.
    â€œI sure as hell hope so,” the gun boss said. “’Cause if that bastard’s armed, there’s nothing we can do about getting it over the side.”
    Four chief petty officers in full battle gear and oxygen breathing rigs came out onto the pilothouse. “Repair Two investigators,” their leader, Chief Dougherty, announced. “Request permission to go up on the signal bridge.”
    â€œWhat if I say no, Boats?” the captain asked.
    â€œWell then, God bless you, Cap’n,” he replied. The other chiefs grinned. Everyone was trying to be really cool, calm, and collected. I wondered if the chiefs were as scared as I was. Even the captain’s little joke had seemed a bit forced.
    â€œLet me go up first,” Marty said. “I know what to look for. Those little props are the key to this. I’m assuming they’re jammed stopped right now. We can’t have them move for any reason.” He turned to one of the engineering chiefs from Repair Two. “Brainard, you guys bring any monkey shit with you?”
    Two chiefs dug into their battle dress and produced what looked like oversized toothpaste tubes. The tubes contained a sealant goo, popularly known throughout the navy as monkey shit, which was used to